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40 Fig. 9 With two brothers who married their own two sisters, the gods confronted a serious problem of succession. The only plausible so- lution was to divide the kingdom: Osiris was given the northern lowlands (Lower Egypt), and Seth was given the southern, moun- tainous part (Upper Egypt). How long this arrangement lasted we can only guess from Manetho's chronicles: but it is certain that Seth was not satisfied with the division of sovereignty and resorted to various schemes to gain control over the whole of Egypt. Scholars have assumed that the sole motive of Seth was a crav- ing for power. But once one grasps what the gods' rules of succes- sion were, it becomes possible to understand the profound effect these rules had upon the affairs of the gods (and then of human kings). Since the gods (and then men) could have, in addition to the official spouse, one or more concubines, as well as beget children through illicit love affairs, the first rule of succession was this: the son first born to the official spouse was the heir to the throne. If the official spouse bore no son, the son first born to any of the concu- bines became the heir. However, if at any time, even after the birth of the Firstborn heir, a son was born to the ruler by his own half- sister, this son superseded the Firstborn and became the Legal Heir. It was this custom that was the cause of much rivalry and strife among the Gods of Heaven and Earth and—we suggest—explains the basic motivation of Seth. Our source for this suggestion is the treatise De hide et Osiride (Of his and Osiris) by Plutarch, a historian-biographer of the first century A.D., who wrote down for the Greeks and Romans of his time the legendary histo- THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN